Transparency International, an anti-corruption group advocating for openness and accountability, faces hypocrisy allegations after reportedly attempt to quash an MEP’s investigation of EU-funded lobbying.
Dutch MEP Dirk Gotink has led parliamentary scrutiny into the European Commission’s shadow lobby scandal.
The scandal involves cooperation between the European Commission and “green” NGOs who approached MEPs on its behalf in a “shadow lobbying scheme”.
Transparency International wrote to Gotink’s party leadership to demand his removal from the investigation into the scandal, he says.
Gotink belongs to the Dutch New Social Contract party, part of the European People’s Party group.
Writing on X on December 19, Gotink condemned the letter as “shocking”.
“Transparency International and other NGOs are trying to pull me back via my party behind my back from the investigation into lobby contracts in the EU. A worrying symptom of the changing relationships,” said the MEP.
It was “absurd” for Transparency to go over Gotink’s head to make their demands to his party, Gotink said in a December 11 public response.
On top of that, the letter “was riddled with false allegations and unfounded claims”, the MEP said.
The European Parliament’s scrutiny working group, on which he serves, was established via a democratic majority, he said, adding the discharge procedure proposed by Transparency and other NGOs was not an appropriate way of dealing with a structural problem like the shadow lobby scandal.
Gotink’s probe revealed several NGOs, including Transparency International Netherlands, Corporate Europe Observatory, Natuur en Milieufederatie Noord-Holland, and Fair Resource Foundation, are blocking public release of the European Commission’s contracts with Green NGOs, despite promises by the Commission to disclose them.
Secret contracts between the European Commission and “green” NGOs were reportedly part of an alleged “shadow lobbying scheme”, according to a Dutch newspaper. https://t.co/cAWxagk9TA
— Brussels Signal (@brusselssignal) January 23, 2025
Gotink said contracts between the Green NGOs and the European Commission revealed irregularities, including that some were funded to influence the European Parliament regarding climate and environmental legislation.
This raises questions on the separation of powers and undue influence, and in most member states such practices would be illegal, he said.
Such cooperation between NGOs and the Commission could be defended legally but not politically, he said, and it brought reputational damage to the European Union.
The Commission, which acknowledged the problem, created new regulations to counter this damage.
The Commission’s internal screening of all ongoing contracts showed in 2024, 47 contracts did not comply with the new regulations and involved extensive lobbying activities.
A large majority of these contracts were with NGOs, with most of them related to climate and the environment.
From the scrutiny working group hearings, Gotink learned that Directorates General (DGs) from the European Commission offered NGOs funds to influence other DGs in the same European Commission, but also to influence MEPs and member states.
Influencing included helping with amendments and technical support, but also with election programmes and putting pressuring on member states to implement EU law via judicial procedures.
“In practice, over the past decade, some climate and environmental NGOs have become influential actors in the EU policymaking process, prompting fundamental questions about the Union’s institutional balance,” he said.
Gotink said in the first hearing, on November 26, the working group found that programmes determined if NGOs received funding, based on the Commission’s political priorities.
This dynamic, Gotink warned, makes the NGOs fall in line with the Commission’s political agenda, particularly on climate and environment.
At the same time, it was claimed that the financial regulation excludes publication where it risks harming the commercial interests of EU recipients of EU funds.
During a hearing in the EP, Kurt Vandenberghe, from the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Climate Action (DG Clima), added that civil society organisations “have voiced concerns over the possible compromise of confidentiality of grant agreements”.
But according to the Commission’s definitions, NGO’s cannot have commercial interests.
Gotink said that such contracts between NGO’s and the Commission should be fully public and accessible, to prevent excesses from the past, when Brussels used money from a billion-euro climate and environmental subsidy fund for its shadow lobbying activities.
The Dutch MEP also noted that NGOs accused him of “a fact-free Trumpian witch hunt against civil society organisations”, a claim he said was libellous, poisoned the public debate and undermined the integrity of his work in parliament.
Former Dutch minister Ronald Plasterk, writing in De Telegraaf on December 19 2025, lambasted the NGOs’ tactics, saying “that an NGO dares to do this signifies the enormous power of these organisations in Brussels.”
Over the years, Transparency International itself received tens of millions of euros in subsidies from the European Commission.
According to the EC’s own financial transparency site, the NGO received €130 million between 2014 and 2024.
Brussels Signal approached Transparency International for a response, but did not receive a reply at the time of publication.
